


captains and crows

by sunbeams (softlyblue)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Minor Injuries, Nostalgia, Third Year Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio, ughhhhh i just miss haikyuu, when will s4 come out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 13:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12960078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyblue/pseuds/sunbeams
Summary: Nobody is more surprised than Hinata when he’s chosen to be the captain of the team.That’s a lie. Nobody is surprised, except Hinata.***A story about nothing much. And about love and growing up and hurting and being okay.





	captains and crows

**Author's Note:**

> gimme my crow sons back

Nobody is more surprised than Hinata when he’s chosen to be the captain of the team. 

That’s a lie.  _ Nobody  _ is surprised, except Hinata. 

“Why’d you pick  _ me?!”  _ He yells, eyes-wide, mouth-open, looking like a particularly unattractive fish. Their old third years, have hung around just for this moment, blinking with pride (Ennoshita) and laughing like hyenas (Nishinoya and Tanaka). “Why -  _ Kageyama,”  _ and the accusing finger spins around,  _ “Did you do this?!”  _

“No,” Kageyama says, raising an eyebrow. “It was the obvious choice.”

The first years - no, the second years, now - are all relaxing at the opposite wall, by now totally used to Hinata’s eccentric screeches. They’ll find out later in the week who their new captain is, and none of them will be surprised, not  _ one.  _ Kageyama can’t wait for the look on Hinata’s face when he realises how much faith everyone really has in him - 

“Why’d you pick me! TsukkiTsukkiTsukki-”

“Shut  _ up,”  _ Tsukishima says, monotone, tossing his water bottle in the air and catching it in the flat of his palm. “Of course we were gonna pick you, dork. Who else could do it?”

“Oh.” Hinata deflates a little, which makes Kageyama glare at Tsukki. Hinata should be happy. 

“We picked you ‘cause you make  _ sense,”  _ Yamaguchi knocks Tsukki’s shoulder, a friendly warning even as the smile spreads across his freckled cheeks. “Who else is good at motivating? Who else could… could make those kids enjoy themselves? Who else could get everyone around them into the sport?”

“I guess,” Hinata toe-shuffles the ground. His hair’s falling in his eyes; wordlessly, Kageyama snaps the hair tie from around his wrist, handing it to his shorter friend. “Hey, does Daichi know?”

“Course he does.”

“Course he does,” Noya echoes, patting Hinata on the shoulder. “Listen, we gotta go - but, hey, y’all enjoy yourselves. Have fun, captain.” 

  
  


The walk home is quiet. 

Kageyama never used to have anything to think about, and now it seems like he has all too much. He’s worried a bit, about college, because he never put any work into school and now he  _ has  _ to. Math is hard. English is harder. Literature is the hardest of all. Hinata is no help, but Kageyama seems to spend  _ all of his time  _ with him - of course, Yachi lends them her notes, but even then it’s not enough. And that’s - 

Not all Kageyama thinks about. 

He thinks about Hinata a lot. 

And he always thinks about Hinata. Before they went to Karasuno, sometimes he’d think about the tiny little ginger kid that had yelled at him outside the bathrooms, and right after they arrived at Karasuno he thought about Hinata  _ all the time.  _ But just about how much he hated him - how annoying he was, how useless he was, how ridiculous it was that Kageyama would be saddled with such a waste of space. 

And then they went to training camps and played matches and  _ lost  _ matches and  _ won  _ matches and Kageyama kept on thinking of Hinata. 

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Hinata’s pushing his bike. The chain makes little  _ clickclickclick  _ noises. They have about ten minutes to walk together before Hinata climbs on and rides home - and Kageyama takes a left towards his own place. 

Kageyama huffs. “You  _ are  _ the best captain, you know.”

(Another thing Kageyama thinks about Hinata - the way he turns red, from the apples of his cheeks to the tips of his ears.) “Shut up, Kageyama,” he grumbles. “Imagine any of us being captain for real. I bet Ukai is gonna make Yachi do all the captaining.” 

_ “Oi.”  _

“What?”

Kageyama tugs on the end of Hinata’s little tufted ponytail. “You’ll be a good captain.”

“If you say so,” Hinata grins again. “Something to write on the college apps.”

  
  


They both want to be scouted. Kageyama-and-Hinata, Hinata-and-Kageyama, the freak duo of Karasuno that’ve won the Nationals twice in a row. Hinata-and-Kageyama, that went head to head with Nekoma and  _ won  _ over Kenma-and-Kuroo; Hinata-and-Kageyama that played a full five sets and collapsed before they could receive their medals, and had to be dragged by Daichi - and then, by Ennoshita - up to bow and scrape in front of the TV cameras. 

Hinata-and-Kageyama. Kageyama-and-Hinata. 

Kageyama’s got an offer already, from a sports college in Tokyo that’s famous for the Olympic-standard players it churns out. He hasn’t mentioned it to Hinata yet, and he doesn’t think he ever will, because he knows Hinata hasn’t got an offer from there - and he isn’t going anywhere without Hinata. They’re the  _ freak duo.  _

“Apart from each other, we’re just freaks,” Hinata beams, like it means nothing. 

  
  


“Have you confessed to chibi-chan yet?”

Oikawa is training to be a  _ teacher,  _ for some reason. And he’s just as smarmy and just as horrible as ever, and somehow Kageyama’s managed to get himself adopted by him - just like how Bokuto took Hinata under his wing, that training camp in second year. Why does Hinata get the cool senpai, and Kageyama’s stuck with  _ Oikawa?  _

“I dunno what you’re talking about,” Kageyama scowls into the baby-latte Oikawa ordered for him. “And this tastes like shit.”

“It’s milk. You like milk, this  _ is  _ milk, it’s a match made in heaven,” Oikawa wakes a hand dismissively, and the sparkly ring glimmers in the sunshine. “Iwa-chan is always telling me to take more of an interest in my kouhai.”

“I’m pretty sure he means your  _ college  _ kouhai, Oikawa-san,” Kageyama says scathingly. 

“No, no. But  _ have you?  _ Confessed, I mean.”

_ “No.”  _

“Aha!” Kageyama gets a spoon pointed at him in triumph. “So you’ve thought about it!”

You can never win against Oikawa Tooru. Education-and-Psychology, with a fiancee studying fucking  _ sports education.  _ Iwaizumi is gonna be the new Ukai to some poor school’s Karasuno, and Kageyama wishes he could do the same. Stupid fucking college. Stupid fucking Hinata. “I haven’t thought about it,” he says, staring at the milky foam. “I said  _ no.  _ Cause I haven’t confessed, because I haven’t thought about it.” 

Oikawa hums in that irritating i-know-better way he has. “In six months time, I’ll lose money if you’re not together,” he warns. 

“I’m  _ definitely  _ not gonna confess, then.”

“Oi!” 

  
  


They’re all growing up. 

Tsukishima isn’t stilted and rude anymore. He’s always been short of speech - always will be, probably, but he’s softer now, more inclined to help out without being asked, and less inclined to be an asshole about it. 

Yamaguchi doesn’t stutter. He used to panic - once, one memorable day late in their first year - Kageyama came across them, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, in the bathrooms. Yamaguchi was taking huge shudderheave breaths into Tsukki’s shoulder and clawing at his jacket, and Tsukki was counting as steadily as he could. Yamaguchi doesn’t do any of that anymore. 

Kageyama thinks he’s grown as best he can. Not as jealous. More accommodating of his teammates’ desires. 

Hinata - 

Hinata’s hair has grown out, and his eyes have grown tall and his knees hurt on cold days even if he hasn’t told anyone and his heart has swollen and shrunk all at the same time and his hands are scarred pink from the amount of times a spike has torn skin and his smile is bigger and the contact list on his phone is longer and his hopes and dreams extend further than the horizon. Hinata is growing up, and Kageyama is beginning to fear that he’s leaving  _ him  _ behind. 

Funny, how these things turn on their head. 

  
  


Hinata has an offer from someplace in  _ Korea.  _

Which - what the fuck - 

And Kageyama isn’t supposed to know about it. He’s in Hinata’s room, and they’re both studying for the upcoming Lit exam and talking about volleyball, when something catches Kageyama’s eye, something thrust out of the way underneath a stack of messy school folders. 

“Bathroom break,” Hinata stands, knees cracking, wincing as he does so. He flaps his hand at Kageyama’s narrowed brow - “It’s nothing, stupidhead - oi, don’t do the rest of the questions without me-”

So Kageyama tugs the envelope out. And it’s an offer. A sports scholarship for Hinata alone. 

  
  


When Oikawa’s knee gave out on him, Kageyama was the first to hear about it, although it’s so unlikely he doubts anyone would believe him.

He was called, at godfuck in the morning.  _ annoying senpai is calling you!  _ and when he’d picked up, growling  _ “What?”  _ into the microphone, Oikawa was sobbing down the phone at him. 

“Tobio-chan---can’t tell Iwa---he’ll kill me----never get into college---fucked up---you----the King----Iwa-chan----” 

Kageyama, a strange sort of guilt boiling in his stomach, had called Iwaizumi and then rolled over and gone back to sleep, and Oikawa never mentioned it again, and neither did he.

  
  


One of the first years this year is two heads taller than Hinata. He towers over him, hands on his hips, looking down his long nose. “I’m a  _ good  _ spiker.”

“So’m I,” says tiny Hinata, and he’s beaming and he’s  _ scary  _ and Ukai is leaning against the wall, silent, smirking like the proverbial cat. “In fact, I’m better’n that. I’m an  _ amazing  _ spiker.”

“You’re-”

“You ‘n me, then, Suzuki,” Hinata’s all hopping foot-to-foot, and Kageyama remembers Suga three years ago challenging them to a match. “You and any setter you want, and me and my setter.”

Suzuki points at Kageyama. “Him.” And he’s smiling victoriously, like - like by choosing Kageyama, he’ll be taking away whatever piece of Hinata makes him  _ special.  _

Like  _ Kageyama  _ is the reason Hinata is. 

“Okay!” Hinata chirrups, and then waves his hand at their second-years. “Nakamura, you wanna set for me?”

“Senpai!” 

They set up. Yachi and Ukai fiddle with scoresheets, both looking smug; everyone’s looking forward to Hinata smashing the new kid, to their captain showing them all who’s boss.  _ “Tobio,”  _ Hinata hisses through the net, pulling his hair up into the little tufty ponytail,  _ “Don’t go easy on me!”  _

“I never do,” Kageyama says in return, squeaking his sneakers against the floor, smiling despite himself. Playing against Hinata is scary. He hardly ever does it, but he won’t ever go easy on him, no matter whose reputation is at stake.

The first year, Suzuki, is good. Kageyama sets and he spikes and Hinata dives to block and the spike zooms through and Suzuki punches the air -

Nakamura is a good setter, too. He reminds Kageyama a little of Yahaba from Seijou; quiet and unassuming, but an unholy force once he’s in the right mood.

Hinata spikes, and spikes, 

and  _ blocks,  _ and blocks. 

Kageyama pretends that the feeling of losing against his - 

his other half -

doesn’t hurt as much as it does. 

  
  


Maybe in the past, Kageyama wanted to leave Hinata in the dust. 

Yeah, but past-Kageyama was an idiot. 

Hinata is wonderful, and amazing, and he’s going to go so far that they’ll have to reinvent the boundaries just to fit him into them. He flies - fucking crows, man - and maybe in the past, Kageyama wanted to leave Hinata in the dust, but now all he wants to do is follow in his wake. 

  
  


They take the train to Tokyo, he and Hinata and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, to meet Bokuto and Kuroo and Kenma and Akaashi, and Oikawa and Iwaizumi seem to appear out of nowhere. The college courts are bigger than Karasuno High, and it smells fresh. Polished. Beside him, Hinata inhales as proud as though the gym is his own. 

“Air Salonpas?”

“Someday, me ‘n you,” Hinata says happily, and he doesn’t need to say any more. 

Kuroo, Oikawa, and Akaashi all go to the same college - Iwaizumi rooms with Oikawa, but goes somewhere else, and Bokuto and Kenma are at another, third place.  _ This  _ gym is the first trio’s team, purely for size, although Oikawa tries yelling about how much better he is than anyone else. 

Kageyama sees Hinata pull his hair away from his eyes, up into that cute little tuft; he sees the determined set of his eyes, and his heart gets tugged all the way onto the court. 

Kenma’s watching him. Kuroo and Bokuto are fucking around, but neither of them are stupid enough to miss the way Kageyama looks - and, of course, Oikawa’s known. 

Do they see Hinata, too? The way he bends over his knees? The way he rubs his calves, the way he winces when he thinks nobody is looking?

(Do they see other things, too, things Kageyama could miss? Lingering looks and lovetorn sighs… yeah, right. If only.) 

  
  


Hinata’s knees give out on a cold night in June. Kageyama is with him. Kageyama is always with him. 

It’s not the first time he’s seen Hinata cry, but it’s the first time he’s had to clamp down on crying along with him. 

  
  


Hinata has to sit out of nationals, and they lose, and nobody is more upset than Hinata himself. Ukai hadn’t told him anything - hadn’t said anything - what could he have said? He’s been giving Hinata lessons in physiotherapy, stretches to do, ways to help the tendons and muscles so carelessly ripped to mend again. Neither of them get any more offers from any sorts of colleges, and Karasuno pulls out of the competition after their first match without Hinata, when they realise - 

When  _ all  _ of them realise - 

How much they seem to need him. 

Nishinoya cries when he sees Hinata all hobbled-up and limping. “You’ll  _ never win again,”  _ he wails melodramatically, and Kageyama expects Hinata to start crying too, but - 

“‘Maybe not in Karasuno, we won’t,” he says, and  _ we,  _ and then he smiles with one arm slung around Kageyama’s neck. “We’re gonna go to college and beat you all.” 

  
  


“Tell him,” Iwaizumi says, when Oikawa goes to the bathroom. “Tell him before you go your separate ways.”

“We’re going to college together,” Kageyama says defiantly over his steamed milk. 

Iwaizumi hums, all sad and old and defeated. 

  
  


“Captain! Captain!”

“Captain! Captain!”

Hinata beams and laughs and he’s so happy, even when his volleyball’s been taken away from him. “What?”

“Set for us!”

“Get Kageyama to do it!”

“He’s too good,” Suzuki scowls at Kageyama good-naturedly. “I can’t fail when he sets to me.”

And Hinata laughs again and his small hand settles over Kageyama’s wrist. “Damn right, you can’t fail! Tobio’s the  _ best setter  _ in the entire world.”

  
  


And actually, Kageyama doesn’t say it. 

The day after they apply for their sports scholarships to - the Jikei group, Kageyama’s pretty sure - Hinata gives him a funny look. He still has to wear the knee brace, but he can play again, and Kageyama’s struck so much by the looks Oikawa used to give Iwaizumi, back in junior high when they had their own little unspoken language without anyone else. He can play, and the man from the college came to observe a match between Karasuno and Shiratorizawa, which Karasuno won - narrowly. 

They might have a chance of getting into this one. 

(And next, the world! Or the Olympics. 2020? 2024?) 

“Let’s go get pork buns,” Hinata says eventually. He doesn’t limp anymore, but he’s got the brace on - he’s better at that than Oikawa was. 

Fucking  _ Oikawa.  _

So Kageyama buys Hinata a pork bun, and two cartons of milk, keeping one for himself and wordlessly popping the straw for his companion. Hinata’s hair is long enough that he has to keep it pulled up pretty much constantly now, and it glows in the soft sunset after the practice. 

“We’re probably never gonna play Shiratorizawa again,” Hinata says eventually. Sitting on the table part of the little bench, his shoes resting on the chair. “Y’ever think about that?”

Kageyama shrugs. He has thought about that, quite a lot. 

Yesterday, they saw Ushijima on Team Japan, in a match against Team Korea. He looked good. 

“We’ll play them again, though.”

“Y’think?”

“Yeah,” Kageyama picks at his bun, scowling. “I - we’re gonna play  _ everyone  _ again. Kuroo and Kenma and Yamamoto and Yaku and Lev and all, they’re all in Tokyo, ‘n so are Bokuto and Akaashi, so  _ obviously  _ we’re gonna get together on weekends and play. And the Seijoh senpais too. We won’t get rid of them so quick.” 

Hinata laughs. “I’m meant to be the one giving  _ you  _ the pep talk.” 

“We swap talks.”

“Mmm.” 

The air is awash with warmth, and slow, sleepy bugs wind their way across the sky. Kageyama doesn’t swat the one that lands on his knee; he just watches it crawl, and then take flight once more.

“Tobio?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re gonna play volleyball together, right?”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says, slowly, and he’s answering a question that goes far further than just playing volleyball. “Yeah, duh. Always together.”

“Okay,” Hinata smiles. “Okay, then. That’s good.”

Kageyama  _ wants  _ to tell him how important he is, and how much he  _ needs  _ him to play, and how pretty his smile is, and how lovely his hair looks, and how alive he looks when he’s flying through the air, and how talking to him is a reminder of how much good there is in the world. 

He doesn’t tell him. 

Hinata already knows, anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/sweetlysofts) (follow me to chat n stuff)  
> 


End file.
